


A Likely Lad

by Rubynye



Category: Lord of the Rings - Tolkien
Genre: Crossdressing, F/F, Nonmonogamy, One of My Favorites, The Shire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-13
Updated: 2010-01-13
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:20:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rubynye/pseuds/Rubynye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rosie's midnight visitor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Likely Lad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ilthit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ilthit/gifts).



> [That lovely drawing](http://www.livejournal.com/users/hyelandia/47876.html#cutid1) of [](http://ilthit.livejournal.com/profile)[**ilthit**](http://ilthit.livejournal.com/)'s based on [](http://danachan.livejournal.com/profile)[**danachan**](http://danachan.livejournal.com/)'s [wonderful drabble](http://www.livejournal.com/users/the_drabblemark/12521.html#cutid1) kept on inspiring me.

**Title**: A Likely Lad  
**Rating**: R  
**Pairing**: Pervinca Took/Rosie Cotton  
**Other Pairings**: Sam/Rosie, Pervinca/whomever  
**Warnings**: Nonmonogamy, femslash, crossdressing, Tookish wildness

 

_Tap, tap_. Rosie startled awake.

_Tap, tap_. Who was throwing pebbles at her window, this late time of night?

_Tap, tap_. Coming secretly after dark wasn't Sam's way, even on the most besotting of spring nights. Was it one of those lads who now and again took it into their heads to court her? It was flattering, but....

_Tap, tap_.A touch grumpily, Rosie got up to see whom she had to shoo away. "Hush!" she hissed as she opened the window just a fingersbreadth. "Before my brothers hear you!"

"That would be a sticky bit of trouble, wouldn't it?" Rosie gasped at a lass's laughter, as a Took-sharp nose bumped hers. Pervinca Took crouched by Rosie's window, hair tucked into a cap, dressed in jacket and vest and breeches. "Hullo, Rosie Cotton."

"Miss Vinca Took! What in all the Shire! You're dressed as a lad!" A thrill of shocked excitement tingling through her to her toes, Rosie released the window shutter; Pervinca pried it open, grinning as she swung one long sleek breeches-clad leg into Rosie's room, then the other, pert and bright-eyed as a squirrel. Vinca made a likely lad, she did, neat and fine from her dusty toes to the jaunty cap above her sparkling eyes.

Well, if she _would_ dress as a lad… "And d'you think my way is to let lads climb in at my window, Miss-_Master_ Took?" Rosie asked with mock severity, putting her hands on her hips, already tingling warmer all over beneath Pervinca's gaze; Vinca just grinned, setting her feet like any lad sure of his midnight welcome. "Why, I should scream for my Da, I should."

"Oh, please don't, Miss Rosie," Pervinca replied, cocksure with not hint of pleading, and Rosie found herself closer without having noticed stepping forward. "Even a runaway lad needs a warm place to sleep."

"A lad may bed down in a hayrick," Rosie murmured, hardly a retort when she stood before Pervinca near enough to smell the springtime on her, close enough to tilt her head back; Vinca wound her arms round Rosie's waist, her silent laughter shivering through them both, her fingers splaying over the small of Rosie's back. "I'll scream," Rosie insisted weakly, her eyes already falling shut.

"I think not," Pervinca laughed softly over her mouth, and kissed her. And what a kiss, spiced with as much naughtiness as a tween could dare and more, considering the picture they must make. Pervinca pulled Rosie in, bold and tight; she could hardly feel Vinca's bosom, bound in by vest and shirt and likely wrappings beneath, but the laughing mouth and sharp nose and Took wantonness were ever the same. Night air poured fragrant but cool through the open window, and a distant owl hooted chidingly, but Rosie scarcely noticed aught but her nightshift's thinness and her heart's pounding and the burn in her blood as Pervinca kissed her.

Then the belly beneath Rosie's hand growled hard enough to be felt as well as heard, and Rosie pulled herself away with a gasp. "You're hungry!" she said; Pervinca just shrugged, replying, "I never knew suppers in inns were so expensive. Kiss me again."

"A Took, off her feed? Be you well?" Rosie reached up to press a hand to Pervinca's brow, gaining a laugh; when she slid it down to Vinca's cheek Vinca kissed her palm. "What am I about?" Rosie asked, herself more than her friend, and pulled her hand away. "You need a bite and more, and here I am giving you naught but moonlight and kisses. And you're Miss Vinca Took, daughter of _the Took_\---" who rolled her eyes ---"but you're in breeches in the small hours, it's all so queer, you've got me turned upside down and outside in!"

Hearing her own voice rising, Rosie pressed her hand to her mouth; biting her lip to keep from laughing aloud, Pervinca shook her head, eyes brilliant with glee. "Here I am, Rosie," Vinca said, squeezing Rosie gently. "What shall you do with me?" And her lips looked so soft, and her eyes sparkled, and Rosie could see every one of her freckles in the moonlight.

"I'll, I'll, I'll feed you," Rosie insisted as stoutly as she could, pulling from Vinca's grasp, "and stay right here, Miss Vinca, and don't go wandering!"

Pervinca's grin was wide and wicked, but she nodded obediently, so Rosie contented herself with that.

***

Only a Took could make such a wracking adventure of a quick duck into the pantry, Rosie said to herself. She fairly thought her heart would burst, it pounded so; the whole way to the kitchen and back; as she managed not to cut herself or break anything in the dark, she chided herself that she should have hidden Pervinca in her bed, beneath it, between it and the window. If her Mam, hearing aught in the night and thinking to look in on her, found a seeming-lad in her room, well, it didn't bear thinking on. Not that it would be much better if Pervinca were found to be a lass. Indeed, why was she here? Rosie hadn't even asked. She sternly told herself to do so as she crept down the hall, carefully bearing a mug of water, a large apple that could have filled both her hands by itself, and a napkin full of odd bits. It would _not_ do to drop any of it.

Even so, it was hard to remember to ask, the way Pervinca looked when Rosie got back; she'd dusted off her feet, and laid aside her cap and jacket and vest, dressed now only shirt and braces and with her hair flowing down around her shoulders. It was hard to remember anything when Pervinca smiled. "Thank you, Rosie," she said with a little curtsey, smoothly changed into a boyish bow, and Rosie giggled. "I'm at your service, Miss Vinca."

Pervinca looked at her a bit less sparklingly for that, but still smiled, and began on the wedge of cheese as she sat on Rosie's bed. Rosie sat beside her holding the rest in her lap, balancing the mug on her hip; remembering, she asked, "But why are you here, dressed so? Did you run off from home?"

"I did indeed," Vinca said, stretching pride over something beneath. "I quarreled with my former betrothed, and with, I think, just about every hobbit in my whole fair family, and last of all with my dear brother Pippin when I told him he mightn't come with me." Her laugh was a little shrill, a bit less merry; without an arm free, Rosie leaned closer so their shoulders touched, and pressed her cheek to Pervinca's soft hair. "So I thought, why not run off and leave it all?"

"But where are you bound?" Rosie passed over the seedcake, which she'd made herself, and couldn't deny being pleased when Pervinca closed her eyes to enjoy it before she replied, "I'm going where the Road takes me, as old Bilbo used to say. Remember him?"

"Of course! The tales he told... but you ain't a lad----" Pervinca looked down at herself, then up at Rosie with a wink. Rosie smiled, but worry clenched within her all the same. "What if you're caught?"

"Then I go home again. Of course, if a fair lass of sense were to come with me, I'd have a better chance of getting farther..." Pervinca looked through her lashes at Rosie, eyes aglitter like an enchantress' in a tale, so Rosie's breath caught in her throat. To fly off free as a bird, live out rough in the green springtime woods with Vinca... for a moment Rosie's mind glowed with the thought, with dreams of adventure by daylight beside a seeming lad. But the thought was a wisp of mist, barely formed before hobbit-sense dispelled it, and Rosie laughed to sweeten her refusal as she shook her head. "I can't, I'm needed, and what would I run to? I'd worry my Mam and my Da and my brothers, and Sam besides. I couldn't, Miss Vinca, though I thank you kindly."

Pervinca looked unsurprised, and took a drink from the mug, looking over its rim at Rosie; when her smile reappeared it was easy and warm, and Rosie hadn't known herself so worried till she felt herself ease. "I thought you'd say me no," Pervinca replied, taking Rosie's hand in hers, a little wistfulness showing through the cheer. "You do love Sam, don't you? And he loves you. He had best, if he has any sense."

Then she grinned, bright as ever. "Well, if you won't come with me I shall sleep before I go, and this is better than a hayrack." Setting the mug down beside the bed and the apple on it, Pervinca dusted off her hands and laid herself down, lad-carefree again. Rosie blinked, and said before she thought, "I don't think I can sleep with you in my bed, as lass or lad."

"But Rosie," Vinca said with wide eyes, "if you'll come here I can tire you so you'll sleep soundly."

Rosie shook her head, and laughed, and leaned down into Pervinca's arms.

***

Vinca had indeed bound her breasts down, with a long swath of cotton that looked torn from a bedsheet. Rosie unwound them and kissed them up again, and Vinca giggled and kissed her as she wriggled from the rest of her clothes and dropped them all on the floor, tossing Rosie's shift over all. Rosie spared a brief thought to disentangling herself and putting the clothes up with care, for Pervinca had to wear them again tomorrow, but it was easier and sweeter to stay in Vinca's arms and kiss her laughing mouth. Out of the boy's clothes, hair streaming through Rosie's fingers, Vinca was all lass again, with her pert breasts and her soft narrow belly and her musky salt-sweetness, her laughing moans and clever fingers till Rosie had to press her face into the pillow to keep from crying out, till she shuddered apart into a thousand tiny bits that Vinca wrapped herself around and gently kissed till they all came together again.

Afterwards, they lay with brows together on the pillow, hair spilled together and arms wound round each other; Rosie thought Pervinca was asleep, and was drifting off herself, when Pervinca whispered, "if anyone asks, you didn't see me."

That stung a little, not least after all this. "I can hold my tongue," Rosie replied more tartly than she ought, if not more than she felt, and Pervinca kissed her for pardon. "I know," she said softly. "You're my friend, Rosie."

It was a warm thought to go to sleep on, indeed.

Fortunately, Rosie stirred in the dark after moonset, when she turned in her sleep and her arm fell across Pervinca's waist; sharing a bed was cozy fun, but it was a little distracting. Prodding herself awake with the thought of the huge row if she let herself oversleep and need to be fetched in the morning, she sat up from beneath the covers into chill air; she watched Pervinca for a moment, her sharp and witty face softened in sleep, before shaking her gently. "Wake, Miss Vinca, wake. I wish I might not say so, but you'd best be off."

Pervinca yawned, turned to look out the still-open window at the starry sky, and frowned. "It's very dark."

"The best time of night for lads to run about," Rosie reminded her with more cheer than she truly felt. Pervinca blinked, smiled rueful understanding, then pulled a comical face to make Rosie giggle as they got up.

When Pervinca struggled with the binding Rosie helped her, kissing her breasts goodbye, and Vinca smiled and kissed her for it; Rosie watched as the outfit went on again, even the jaunty little neckerchief, as Pervinca turned back into a boy before her eyes. "Well, I'm dressed and ready, with even an apple for breakfast," she said, setting her cap over her tied hair. "See me off on my way?"

"But you need more provision than that!" Grabbing the mug, Rosie ran down to the kitchen as fast as she might, and filling a napkin in the dark was a bit easier this time. When Rosie returned, Pervinca hefted the bulging parcel and chuckled. "Thank you kindly, Miss Rosie," she said, giving her voice a husky burr; she laughed merrily when Rosie blushed at the handsome lad she made, and wound her arm round Rosie's waist to pull her in for one more kiss, stroking the other hand up her cheek and ear into her hair.

Then, just before Rosie would but moan, just before her knees would melt, Pervinca let her go. She reached up out of the window to grab a handhold to climb, then paused and looked back at Rosie. "I'll---" she faltered, for just a moment, before propping up that bright grin again. "When I see you again I'll tell you all my adventures," she promised, and climbed up as if she'd been in breeches all her life, and was gone. Rosie watched her go, a slender figure running lightly into the night, before shutting the window. Her little room echoed her steps; she climbed back into her empty bed and closed her eyes.

***

Two days later, Rosie's brothers returned from the _Dragon _ bursting with news, and they fetched up in the kitchen as they gossiped on it. "Did you ever hear of such a lass?" cried Jolly, laughing fit to fall over; Tom was striving to look disapproving, so he shook his head. "No, and I hope not to. It's not natural for a lass to dress as a lad, nor to run off alone across country."

_And why not?_ Rosie thought, but didn't say, for in the end she knew as well as she knew which lass they spoke of. Instead she stood quiet and listened as she dried dishes. "Well, if 'twere natural for any, 'twould be for a Took, and that she is, isn't she? Or mayhap she's a Brandybuck, diving into the Water as she did."

_Vinca, you daft creature! Please be well!_ Rosie gasped, nearly dropping the plate she held, and spun round to them. "How does she fare?"

"How does who fare?" Jolly asked teasingly, but Nick poked him, and Tom smiled at her. "We heard such a story tonight, Rosie, but it's best told from the beginning." All Rosie wanted to hear at that moment was if Vinca were all right after a ducking in the Water, but if she asked again her brothers would remember that they'd met the summer past; at the least there'd be no end of questions and at the worst Tom and Jolly were bright enough to add it all up together. So she nodded as if her heart weren't fluttering with worry, and Tom leaned back and began telling at the pace he liked while Jolly rolled his eyes and Nick settled his chin in his hands. "The Took has three daughters, all fair headstrong lasses, or so I hear tell. The wildest one is the youngest, Miss Pervinca Took, and we heard that she ran off this last Sunday, dressed in a suit of lad's clothing!"

Tom paused expectantly, waiting on Rosie's indignant delight at such wildness, beyond the bounds even for a gentlehobbit. After a moment, Rosie unstuck her tongue to offer a weak, "Well, that's rare;" Tom, looking faintly disappointed, opened his mouth again, but Jolly broke in with, "They finally caught her up in Budgeford or thereabouts, but not afore she jumped into the Water like an otter and tried to swim away. Tooks and Brandybucks share blood as well as wildness, they say. Bagginses too, ain't it so?"

The thought of bright-eyed Vinca, deep water over her head... Rosie swallowed hard, not speaking till she knew her voice wouldn't betray her. "Was--- how did she fare?" she asked; she heard the waver, but fortunately her brothers didn't. "She's well and dry and taken off home again," Tom answered lightly; the knot in Rosie's chest relaxed, and she tried not to slump visibly as she nodded and reached for another plate.

"I heard she was off to see the wide world," Nick said, voice soft with wonder; Tom snorted, and Jolly laughed and replied, "I heard she slept in hayricks all the way. She should have come by our farm, I'd've put her up better than that!"

"Would you now?" Tom asked teasingly, and Rosie joined in the general laughter as she turned back to the dishes to hide her blushing face. Behind her Nibs wandered in, and as their brothers began telling him the story she thought back on her part in it, and couldn't help but smile.


End file.
